Air Force trainer guilty of wooing female trainee

38 female trainees victimised

A military jury on Wednesday found a Texas Air Force basic training instructor guilty of two of four charges arising from a sex scandal surrounding instructors at the base.

A jury of seven commissioned Air Force officers, including two women, deliberated about three hours before convicting Tech Sgt. Christopher Smith of wooing one female trainee and fraternizing with another, according to Oscar Balladares, spokesman for Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. The deliberations came after a day of testimony at Lackland.

Smith was acquitted of making sexual advances on the female trainee he wooed at Lackland and of obstructing justice. The sentencing phase begins Thursday, Balladares said.

Last month, a military jury sentenced Staff Sgt. Luis Walker to 20 years in prison after the former instructor was convicted of rape and sexual assault. The counts against Walker were the most severe in the investigation.

Lackland is where all Air Force recruits go through basic training. It has about 500 instructors for about 35,000 airmen who graduate every year. While one in five recruits are female, most instructors are male.

Six of the 15 instructors being investigated have been charged, with Walker and another instructor, Staff Sgt. Peter Vega-Maldonado, already having been court-martialed. Vega-Maldonado admitted in June to having sex with a female trainee and he was given 90 days of confinement as part of a plea deal.

Courts-martial have been set for three more trainers, with Master Sgt. Jamey Crawford scheduled for trial Sept. 5. He stands accused of having a wrongful sexual relationship with a trainee, wrongfully providing and consuming alcohol with a trainee and committing adultery with the trainee.

A two-star general, Maj. Gen. Margaret H. Woodward, has launched a separate, independent probe. Nearly 80 members of Congress have called for a hearing.

Meanwhile, a Republican senator is blocking a vote on the White House pick for Air Force chief of staff over the service's response to the scandal. In a statement last week, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said he put a hold on the nomination of Gen. Mark Welsh "until I feel the Air Force is adequately addressing the unacceptable situation at Lackland and taking corrective steps to reform their training program to prevent this from happening again."

Welsh has been tapped to replace Gen. Norton Schwartz next month as head of the Air Force.

The sexual misconduct at the base apparently began in 2009, but the first woman didn't come forward until last year. The first allegations were levied against Walker.

The Air Force has permanently removed Walker and 35 other instructors for a variety of reasons that include misconduct, failure to meet standards and medical issues.